Sweet, Tasteful `Coppelia` Saves Most Of Its Sparks For Closing

Act

February 10, 1991|By Richard Christiansen, Entertainment editor.

``Coppelia,`` here for a weekend of five performances in the Civic Opera House, is this season`s new production of a full-length classic ballet by American Ballet Theatre. It`s not the automatic box-office hit that a big

``Swan Lake`` or ``Sleeping Beauty`` can provide, but it`s a sweet, tasteful and nicely danced version that is consistently pretty to see and often pleasing to watch.

A prime ballet of the Romantic era, ``Coppelia`` was created in Paris in 1868 by Arthur Saint-Leon, using a lovely score by Leo Delibes, and had

its American premiere in the full three-act version exactly 100 years later in an ABT production staged by Enrique Martinez.

The new edition, again staged by the reliable and durable Martinez, faithfully follows the Saint-Leon story line and dresses it up with creamily colored picture book designs by Tony Straiges (scenery) and Patricia Zipprodt (costumes).

Straiges, who showed that he could bring fairy tales to life on the stage in his work for the musical ``Into the Woods,`` has set the story, about a crotchety old puppet master and the two young lovers who torment him, in a little Middle European town, a quaint spot where the peasant women are all dressed in Zipprodt`s colorfully stitched dirndls.

Swanilda and Franz, the prankish lovers, cavort in a sunny plaza in Act One, and get married in a ribbon-bedecked town square in Act Three. In between, they make mischief in the workshop of poor old Dr. Coppelius

(portrayed by Terry Orr in Friday`s opening), a place that Straiges has charmingly decorated with huge puppets and toys.

Most of the showoff dancing takes place in Act Three, when the newylweds perform their grand pas de deux and join the rest of the townsfolk in a final galop. Marianna Tcherkassky, petite and perpetually on her toes, and Johan Renvall, boyish and buoyant in his smartly accomplished turns, were the lovers Friday night (also scheduled for Sunday evening`s performance), backed by a corps of spirit and precision.

Before this welcome burst of well-drilled dancing, however, one has to endure the coarse fumblings of the slapstick in Act Two`s toy shop.

It`s always a mystery to see how dancers who are so smart and sharp in their ballet work can transform themselves into such fussbudget amateurs when they are called upon to mime simple comic turns. Perhaps they need an acting master, as well as a ballet master, to teach them that it takes more than furious flailing about to produce laughs.

Ignore that broad aspect of an otherwise delicate production and you can have a happy time at this family show.

`COPPELIA`

A ballet in three acts, with music by Leo Delibes, choreographed by Enrique Martinez from the original staging by Arthur Saint-Leon, with scenery by Tony Straiges, costumes by Patricia Zipprodt and lighting by Thomas Skelton. Presented by American Ballet Theatre Friday in the Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive, and plays again, with some changes in casting at 1:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Running time: 2:20. Tickets are $20 to $60. Phone 312-902-1500.